Bruins showing they can still contend for Stanley Cup

Sunday

Feb 9, 2014 at 6:34 PMFeb 10, 2014 at 11:43 AM

With the NHL standings hardened into stone for the next 17 days, the Bruins like where they stand.

BOSTON — On Thursday night, the Bruins went into St. Louis without three of their best defenders. Dennis Seidenberg is still using crutches after his ACL surgery last month. Zdeno Chara learned the finer points of being a flag-bearer. Adam McQuaid sat in his North End apartment nursing a leg injury.

All three bring physical, relentless work in their own zone. And yet still, the Bruins felt they were the better team than the Blues, who emerged with a 3-2 overtime win.

"We really played well, and I thought we had as good an opportunity to win that game as any," coach Claude Julien said Friday. "There was a tremendous amount of effort and focus. From the back end, we're missing a lot of key elements there and it didn't seem to matter."

With the standings hardened into stone for the next 17 days as the NHL goes on Olympic hiatus, the Bruins like where they stand.

With games in hand on all their competitors in the Atlantic Division, they have a seven-point lead on Tampa Bay. At 78 points, they're just five points south of Pittsburgh for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins could have home-ice advantage for the first three rounds of the playoffs.

Not that finishing high in the regular-season standings is enough for this team, coaching staff, management or fan base. They've been to the Stanley Cup Final twice in three years. The only question that matters is, can they get there, and win it, again?

Since Seidenberg tore his ACL and MCL six weeks ago, it's been the burning question. Did their chances at a championship get slashed along with Seidenberg's knee ligaments?

It's on Peter Chiarelli to determine if defensive supplements are needed. On Saturday, the general manager said he's essentially looking at defensive depth and there won't be much of a market for a top-four defenseman anyway.

Chiarelli echoed confidence in his current group, one that now includes rookie Matt Bartkowski and 20-year-old Dougie Hamilton as big-minute blue liners.

Against the other 'elite' teams in the NHL — Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, Anaheim, San Jose, Los Angeles — the Bruins are 5-4-3, including a 2-2-2 mark since Seidenberg went down. They weren't ready for top opponents in the immediate aftermath of Seidenberg's injury, but carry an 8-1-2 surge into the Olympics.

Going into St. Louis last week and playing even with the Blues while rookies David Warsofsky, Torey Krug, Kevan Miller and Bartkowski took two-thirds of the shifts showed there is still capability of competing with the iron in the Black-and-Gold.

"We didn't have Zee, we didn't have McQuaid, we didn't have Seids [in St. Louis]," Chiarelli said. "Those are three really good defenders. … But that was a good game, [the Blues] are a heavy team. I think we've outplayed them both times we've played them but we haven't won. But I've been happy with the way we played them both times so it's a good measuring stick game. So it's nice to say we have a measuring stick game instead of us being the measuring stick all the time."

After 57 games, the Bruins have proven a few things. They're a more consistent team than recent editions. Last season's Cup Final run came only after the Bruins dipped-and-cratered their way to a runner-up finish in the Northeast Division and the No. 4 seed in the East.

This season has been smoother. The Bruins have not lost three games in a row all season, the only Eastern Conference team that can make that claim. For all the superpowers in the West, the Blues are the only other NHL club to have avoided three straight defeats.

Offensively, there are few concerns. Chiarelli is not pursuing a forward in a trade. The top three lines have all had good seasons, with the remade third line of Chris Kelly, Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson perhaps Boston's third trio since the 2011 title team's group of Rich Peverley, Kelly and Michael Ryder.

There are five goal scorers between 16 and 18 goals — Brad Marchand, Reilly Smith, Jarome Iginla, Milan Lucic and Patrice Bergeron. David Krejci is having the best season of his career. Soderberg is coming on, and Loui Eriksson hasn't had an opportunity to show his skills in a hard-luck season.

Despite more poor games than anyone is used to, Tuukka Rask is an enviable asset in goal and has shown he can withstand playoff pressure.

The duck boats can't be cued just yet, but the structure is in place for another run at the Cup.

The playoff chase

Here's how the East stands as the NHL hits the Olympic break, with the Bruins in a solid position.